The Reader arrives in Chester with an evening of Roald Dahl for big kids at The Storyhouse

Local charity The Reader is launching a Shared Reading campaign in Cheshire on Roald Dahl Day with an evening at Storyhousecelebrating the magic of reading aloud with adults.

The ‘Evening of Roald Dahl’ event, from 6pm to 8pm on Thursday 13 September, will showcase some of the author’s lesser-known adults’ stories, including The Umbrella Man.

Well known for his enchanting and enduring tales for children, Dahl also wrote 51 short stories for adults, collected in four books, some of which might not be suitable for small ears, they are: Over to You; Kiss, Kiss; Someone Like You and Switch Bitch.

The event is part of The Reader’s Cheshire roadshow, created for October’s Voluntary Arts and Age UK Age of Creativity festival, which is designed to get more older people involved in creative activities.

The roadshow will see The Reader popping up for ‘An Afternoon of Roald Dahl’ in Northwich Library on 1 October and at Ellesmere Port Library on 3 October, both from 1pm to 3pm. It will then head back to Storyhouse on 7 October to celebrate Silver Sunday, with Shared Reading sessions at 2pm and 3pm, in collaboration with Brightlife as part of Age UK Cheshire’s Love Later Life festival.

The Reader was founded in Liverpool a decade ago and is now supporting 500 Shared Reading groups up and down the country every single week, including more than 200 in the North West.

The Storyhouse already hosts two of these groups. The Cheshire campaign will see the launch of 10 more, led by 20 new local volunteers, in a variety of community, dementia and mental health centres across the county.

“Isolation among adults has been shown to be a public health problem in Cheshire, as it is across the country, with more than 2 million people suffering from chronic loneliness,” said The Reader’s founder and chief executive Jane Davis.

“We’re now appealing for the people of Cheshire to join the reading revolution – particularly those who are keen to build Shared Reading communities in Chester, Northwich, Ellesmere Port, Weaverham and Tarporley. As Roald Dahl said in his final children’s book, The Minpins, ‘those who don’t believe in magic will never find it’, so come along to one of our roadshow events to experience it in action.”

This project is supported by Brightlife Cheshire, a coalition of organisations working together to help reduce social isolation among people aged over 50 in Cheshire West and Chester, as well as the NHS West Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group, responsible for commissioning health and care services across the area, with a particular focus on dementia and mental health for this project.

Evaluation carried out by The Reader and the University of Liverpool has shown that Shared Reading groups can improve wellbeing, reduce social isolation and build stronger, more supportive communities.

Groups are free to attend and open to everyone regardless of age, ability or background. Weekly sessions are led by a trained Reader Leader who brings something – a short story, poem, play or novel – to be read aloud and discussed by the group.

By reading with purpose, and sharing thoughts and reflections, many group members find personal meaning in the literature and form strong social connections with others.

“It’s fantastic to see The Reader taking part in Brightlife’s Silver Sunday celebrations at Storyhouse in Chester,” said Chris McClelland, Head of Brightlife. “This project is a wonderful example of how the arts, culture or just a shared interest can really bring people together to help combat loneliness in our borough.”

The Reader is also looking to support children across Cheshire West through its First Page project, offering collaboration with any groups or partner organisations currently working with families with kids aged 8 and under. Funded by the Steve Morgan Foundation, First Page aims to give families a love of reading for pleasure. With this in mind, there are opportunities for partner staff and volunteers to receive Storytime training, workshops and fully funded trips to The Reader’s Storybarninteractive reading experience.

Thank you for expressing an interest in volunteering with The Reader. Your details have been sent to our team; we’ll be in touch as soon as possible using your preferred mode of contact. In the meantime, here’s some things you can do to start your Shared Reading story.

1 – Visit a group

If you aren’t an existing group member or haven’t dropped into a session yet; before training, we ask volunteers to attend an open community Shared Reading group. Groups are always free to attend and there is no need to book. Find your closest group here.

You can also get an idea of how a group works with this group snapshot video:

2 – Complete our application form

If you’ve already visited a Shared Reading group and are interested in training to become a volunteer Reader Leader, we’ll ask you to complete our application form. One of the team will email this to you, but you can also download it here if you want to make a start.